Good morning. It’s Monday. We’ll take in the view from the Municipal Building, where the city plans to open a free observation deck on the 36th floor. We’ll also get details on a fight over replacing a parking lot with two apartment buildings in NoHo.
Unlike the Top of the Rock in Rockefeller Center, it won’t have a beam that will swing you out for an “aiieeee” moment when there seems to be nothing below but the cityscape. Unlike the Empire State Building, it’s not famous from cameos in “King Kong” and “Sleepless in Seattle.”
But the cupola of the Municipal Building could become a “must-see bucket item,” Yume Kitasei, the commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, hopes. And, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced last month, taking in the 360-degree view from there will be free, setting it apart from the city’s other observation decks — high places that have high admission prices. A ride on the “Beam Experience” at Top of the Rock starts at $15, in addition to a general admission ticket, which starts at $42.
DCAS, as Kitasei’s agency is known, plans to open the cupola in June after $6 million in renovations to the building. She says that publicly available tours have never been offered there (though Open House New York, a nonprofit that arranges access to usually private spaces, has taken groups up).
I got a preview with Kitasei last week. The Municipal Building, at 1 Centre Street, is shorter than the other buildings with observation decks: This one is on the 36th floor. The Empire State Building has two observation decks, one on the 102nd floor, the other on the 86th. “More intimate” was how Moses Gates — a vice president of the nonprofit Regional Plan Association who is an observation deck aficionado — described the view from the Municipal Building.
“That is still high enough that you have this really good view,” he told me later, before talking about One Vanderbilt, the 1,400-foot supertall skyscraper next to Grand Central Terminal. “The coolest thing about One Vanderbilt is you’re right there, looking at the crown of the Chrysler Building.”
That reminded me of an unexpectedly captivating moment as Kitasei and I walked around the cupola: looking down at the top of the federal courthouse, the Municipal Building’s next-door neighbor, with its gilded terra-cotta roof.
What you won’t see
Crowds. Nearly a million people ascended to the observation deck of the Empire State Building in its first year; celebrities like Albert Einstein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Queen Elizabeth II went there at one time or another. DCAS is looking to accommodate only about 10,000 visitors a year at the Municipal Building — eight groups a day, five people at a time.
There’s only one elevator to the cupola, and it’s relatively small. The Empire State Building and the Top of the Rock each have several larger elevators to their observation decks.
What you will see
The Brooklyn Bridge. It’s so close that you could almost reach out, Kong-like, and pluck cars from the exit ramp below. Kitasei mentioned Washington Roebling, who carried on building the bridge after his father was injured and died. She also mentioned Washington Roebling’s wife, Emily, who carried on after her husband got decompression sickness while supervising construction, leaving him able to do little more than watch from a window in Brooklyn Heights. Emily Roebling “was the one who was basically the project manager,” Kitasei said.
Midtown Manhattan. Midtown seems surprisingly small and far away. Kitasei mentioned the race that briefly made the Chrysler Building the world’s tallest skyscraper until the Empire State Building surpassed it 11 months later. From where the Municipal Building sits, there’s no competition: The Empire State Building looks much taller.
And also … “You’ve got Chinatown down here on the Lower East Side, which is a pretty cool slice of history,” Kitasei said, along with housing projects like the Alfred E. Smith Houses. She also mentioned Collect Pond Park, a source for drinking water in the 18th century that became an open sewer and was drained in the 19th through a canal. It, too, was eventually paved over, creating Canal Street.
The view, she said, “gives you a broader perspective of the city.” She referred to the sense of wonder that comes with a glimpse of the Panorama, a huge diorama installation that spreads across the floor of a former roller rink at the Queens Museum.
“Except,” she said, “this is real life.”
Weather
Today will the sunny and — yes — warm, with a high near 64. Tonight will be mostly clear, with temperatures around 46.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until March 20 (Eid al-Fitr).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It’s going to feel like Vegas in the middle of Flushing Meadows Corona Park.” — Rebecca Pryor, the executive director of the nonprofit Guardians of Flushing Bay, on the planned casino development there. The proposal has created concern in nearby neighborhoods.
The latest New York news
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Living in limbo: A year after his arrest, Mahmoud Khalil, the face of President Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests, is living with uncertainty as the Trump administration continues its efforts to deport him.
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Badge No. 13558: A history of New York is told through a single Police Department shield and the seven policemen who have worn it over the years.
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A Manhattan doctor’s ties to Epstein: Dr. Bernard Kruger stepped away from his roles at two Manhattan health clinics after it was revealed that he gave a membership to a private emergency room to Jeffrey Epstein and five unnamed “girls.”
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The Met Opera’s financial crisis: The Metropolitan Opera has sought a cash infusion from Saudi Arabia and courted the tech billionaire Elon Musk (who did not respond), but its financial troubles remain acute.
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A fixture in city politics: Ronnie Eldridge, who served as a political strategist to Mayor John Lindsay, spent 12 years on the City Council and championed the rights of women, gay people, prisoners and other marginalized groups, died on Wednesday. She was 95.
A fight over replacing a parking lot with housing
What gives a neighborhood its identity?
That question has come up in NoHo in Manhattan, where developers want to turn a parking lot on Lafayette Street into apartment buildings. Neighbors say the buildings threaten what sets NoHo apart.
The new buildings would rise as tall as 19 stories and include about 200 units. About 50 would be “affordable,” renting for somewhere around $2,200 for a two-bedroom apartment, in a neighborhood where ground-floor lofts can go for $20,000 per month.
My colleague Mihir Zaveri writes that many residents liken the project to dropping a gigantic cruise ship or a spaceship into their community, and are counting on the city’s historic preservation rules to stop it. The lot is in the NoHo Historic District Extension, meaning that any development must be approved by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which will hear public comments at its meeting tomorrow.
Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit group that is a leading voice of the opposition, said that he fully expected that something would be built on the lot, but that it shouldn’t be as big or as out of character as the proposed apartment buildings.
METROPOLITAN DIARY
Steep stoop
Dear Diary:
I had just finished a jog in Prospect Park when I noticed an older woman beckoning me from the door of a brownstone.
I pulled out my earbuds.
“Yes?” I called up to her.
“Can you get my newspaper?” she asked, pointing to the bottom of her steep stoop.
“Oh, sure,” I said.
I quickly jogged the paper up to her.
“Ah, thank you,” she said, beaming at me like I was Wonder Woman, not a sweaty, middle-aged mom in ill-fitting exercise shorts.
I was making my way back down the steps when she called out to me again.
“Sorry?” I said, turning back toward her
“My window,” she said. She gestured sadly toward a window overlooking the street. “It is stuck. My apartment, so very warm.”
I hesitated.
“Did you call your super?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He never comes.”
She stared at me beseechingly.
“Um, you want me to open it?” I asked.
She grinned.
“Yes, come!”
She motioned for me to follow her, and I walked uneasily into the building. Should I really be entering this stranger’s home, I wondered. I could picture my husband shaking his head at me.
As I entered her dimly lit living room, I stopped in my tracks. Hundreds of shiny eyes stared back at me, and a chill ran down my sweaty back. The entire wall was filled with a collection of old-fashioned porcelain dolls.
“There,” she said, pointing to the window.
I hurried over and gave it a heave, and it popped open.
She grinned.
“Wonderful,” she said.
I wished her a good day and made my exit. I was happy to have given her a breeze, but I was now wondering how many brownstones secretly had entire walls of spooky dolls.
— Johanna Gohmann
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post What You See From the 36th Floor of This Observation Deck appeared first on New York Times.
